The Ringer NBA Show - Celtics Vibe Check and Observations With Jared Weiss | Weekends with Wos

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Wos sits down with Boston Celtics and NBA beat writer for ‘The Athletic,’ Jared Weiss, to discuss the Boston Celtics, the Ime Udoka scandal (1:52), the overall culture of the team (5:29), what their goals are looking like this season (19:26), and more! Host: Wosyn Lambre Guest: Jared Weiss Producer: Jade Whaley Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The time has come to get ready for the 2022 World Cup. And what better way to prepare than by revisiting the World Cup's most amazing goals? I'm Brian Phillips. I'm making a podcast about the history of the men's World Cup, told through the stories of 22 iconic goals. The show's called 22 Goals. It's out now on the Ringer Podcast Network, and we're having so much fun. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to weekends.

I'm your host, Big Wasa, aka Wazdinandre, and I'm joined by a very, very special guest. This guy is something of a brother to me. From the old job, now he is easily the most plugged-in Boston Celtics reporter known to exist. My man, Jared Weiss, man. What's going on? Shabbat Shalom, brother. Shabbat Shalom, bro. How we doing?

I'm good, man. I can't complain. You know, I like to have my friends on this show, people who are super duper plugged in around the league, and I couldn't think of a more interesting, shall we say, situation around the league than what is happening currently in Boston. So I wanted to have a bit of a Celtics. vibe check with you, Jared, today. And yeah, welcome to the show, man.

How you feeling, bro? I mean, the vibes are immaculate over here. So I think the check's done. The check's done. They left all that shit in the past. Oh, man. You know, first thing I want to ask you, just as, you know, because I did talk to you

when that shitstorm, firestorm, craziness in the middle love it. I remember we spoke and you were just like, bro, the fucking BBC just called me. You know, like, it was I forgot about that. Yeah, it was like crazy over there

like, you know, how many people were reaching out, trying to find out what was going on in the situation. Tell me, where were you when you got the news that EMAIDOCA had been suspended for a year, aka fired? I think I was at a bar.

A couple drinks in, I think, at that point. Just like, just knowing, like, there's nothing going to happen tonight. Yeah. Media day's right around the corner. We're just, we're just cruising into the beginning of this season. No controversies. They already dealt with all the BS I got to deal with. And then that happens. And yeah, that kind of turned the whole week upside down. That's for sure. I think I must have worked for like 48 hours straight. Just gathering intel that almost none of it made made it out to the light of day just because it's like there was so much crazy shit going around that, It was really, I had so much stuff that I felt very, I felt well sourced on,

but it was still so insane that I'm like, this can't be true. Like, there's no way this is true. Or it's just too speculative. And so it was just like two, three days straight of just like getting all these fragments and trying to piece it together. I felt like one of those like old scenes from 24, like back in the day where they're like enhanced on the image. I'm just like, I just got a pixelated image.

I'm just trying to put the right string of code in there to make sure it enhances properly. And, man, I think a big part of the shock of the Udoka situation was the guy's sort of reputation and the self-image that he had crafted around the organization. Can you speak to like what his rep was as far as you were concerned? Because from everybody I talked to, like, they felt like they were kind of blindsided by this because of like the level of like he was like Mr. professional person, whatever. What was his sort of rep as far as you could tell before this landed on your desk?

I don't know if that's exactly. I mean, he was great at establishing a culture within the basketball team. I hadn't really heard anything about him being the ultimate mensch outside of that situation. I didn't really hear anything like contrary to it beforehand.

I just like that, it wasn't like Brad Stevens situation where Brad Stevens was really known as a family man, that kind of thing. It wasn't that same kind of vibe. It was, I don't know. I think honestly it just wasn't something people were talking about. But the dude is a former NBA player. So that, enough said right there.

And so I, you know, there was so much stuff that people were talking about after it came out. And I've heard plenty of rumors after it came out. And so I think most of it has gotten out there at this point. I think anything that I was sitting on still trying to vet, somebody leaked it out there and somehow made it out onto social media. And there's, I mean, there's so much information out there at this point that a lot of the things people think are true are actually contradicting each other. So who knows what's actually legit. But once something like this happens, then you start having people from all over the place saying like, yeah, this happened in the past.

That happened in the past. I heard about this, that kind of thing. So a lot of other stuff started kind of bubbling to the surface for sure. So, man, I'm glad you mentioned the culture that he had established with the team. And what was that culture, right? Because it was a culture that got them to the NBA finals, essentially. It's hard to say that the Celtics were not coached up last year. Like, he coached them up.

Oftentimes, it's hard to pinpoint the direct effect a coach is having on the product out on the floor. But I think with Udoca, it felt palpable that this guy was making a difference. Can you speak to some of those differences? as somebody who was there before E-May was around and what you witnessed last year? I mean, they needed someone to come in and kind of smash a couple things.

They did someone to walk in the room and just start, like, trash in the place and then tell everybody, all right, now you clean it up and make it look nice. And that's pretty much what happens. Like, he trashed the place. And they all, like, had to look in the, I guess the broken mirror,

shatter it all over the floor and figure out what they had to do to actually be a winning ball club and that really worked. And I think the big thing he did was he really gotten guys grills figuratively and literally. And, I mean, it started from day one where, like, he took a jab at Brad Stevens while sitting next to him at his introductory press conference.

It was like a pretty good, like, you know, pretty good play. It was something about how the team was ranked lowly in a sister game last year. And I don't know who the coach was last year, but we'll try to work on that. That was smart. It was really smart. You know, he put his foot down immediately with that stuff. Said he was going to not be afraid to talk to guys straight up, be, you know, getting their faces and really challenged them.

And he slowly started to do that over the first few months. It took kind of some convincing from his coaching staff, honestly, but like really started pushing guys. But he was like trash and dues in the media. And it wasn't just saying like, we need to get better at this. Like he was like, we're straight up not doing this. Like we're bad at this. Stuff like that.

And to his credit, he did it to everybody. He did it to opponents. He did it to his own players. He did it to himself. Like he was not holding back. And that worked. Like guys started really holding each other accountable, started really, I think just like confronting some of the hard truths that they weren't they weren't really doing a good job of confronting over the years. And that all like I guess everybody got better from that.

And also just like once they could get through that initial breakthrough, then the harmony was a lot better. So it was a combination of that. And also he just had to kind of like tweak some things with the system to make them play better. He had to get rid of Dennis Schrooter just like straight up to make them play better. like shrewder i mean shrewder is is is fine for what he brings to the table in like specific skills but shruder wasn't a cohesive part of what they were trying to he was like it was just like play style he didn't fit it wasn't like uh like he's a he's a jerk or anything like that he was a jerk to the media but i don't think to his teammates but like whatever who cares that's what we're there for right but he just playing style

he wasn't as good of a fit like josh richardson who's a good player who was actually putting up decent numbers and putting up good numbers in san Antonio he wasn't quite as good of a fit for what they were trying to do in that role. And so they just kind of like, they just finally got everything just in place. And it was a good example last year of how as much as getting big stars around them matters, like getting everything to really kind of gel is what matters more. And you can have less talent, but better fit and be a better team as we saw in the, with the Lakers game last night.

Yeah, you know, it's ill because I think a lot of the stuff that was plaguing Boston last year was the Marcus Smart, teacher's pet. but he's like the fourth best player on the team, but he acts like he's Jordan around the place. And, you know, it felt like Brad had a hard time establishing a hierarchy and a pecking order and defining roles. And EMA came in there and was like, no, no, no, we're going to make Marcus the point guard.

We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And that shit ended up working to their benefit all the way to the finals. And I do want to talk about the guys who are still there. You talk about the core of Big Al, Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, and Marcus Smart. What's your read on how they've decided to approach this fucking mess? Or what was a mess that was put in their lap? What do you think was their approach to this thing?

I mean, first thing I'll say is, I don't know for sure, but I think it was Brad Stevens' decision to make Marcus Smart the point guard. The roster was very clearly set up that he was the point guard. There wasn't anybody else. It wasn't going to be Schroeder. It wasn't going to be Peyton Pritchard. So that was a Brad Stevens decision, I guess, first and foremost. And then as far as this year, you know, when it happened, I'm sure they knew pretty much right

away Joe was going to be the interim coach. I mean, as soon as we heard about the EMA stuff going down, I immediately thought that Joe was going to be the one to take over. Why not Damon Stademaier? Yeah, it's funny. People ask me that. I think the first obvious answer is that Damon is attached to EME, like, Damon came in there because of EME has this relationship.

So he's got the Emey. And Joe. Okay. Yeah. So Joe is just, he's been part of their program for a while. And he has also developed those relationships over time. And if they were going to suspend E. May and, you know, it seems more likely going to let him go at the end of the season,

it's hard to then bring in someone who was just brought in by him and it clearly has a very close relationship to him to bring that person in and then give that person full autonomy and not expect E. to like kind of be in the mix a little bit there. So I think there's a bit of a, probably a bit of a concern about that. And I haven't been told that by anyone there. It's just a, you know, like that's, that's one thing that you could definitely see as something that makes sense there. But I do think first and foremost, it was Missoula is the one guy on that coaching staff that has been getting head coaching interviews, like had just done really well in the Utah chase.

And actually, the Celtics owner just said the other day that Danny Ains tried to poach Missoula to be the top assistant over in Utah for Will Hardy. It's so, you know, clearly Utah thought pretty highly of him. So I think just Missoula was the one that probably just made the most sense in the different, you know, kind of, you know, categories they wanted to check off. And also, like, Missoula is actually fairly similar to EMA in a lot of ways as far as his approach, his kind of quiet demeanor. The big difference is.

Do we think Joe Missoula would want you saying? As a basketball coach, similar to EMA in a few ways. And so I think that there isn't as dramatic of a change going from EMA to Joe. I think EMA is more of like a shit talker. I don't think Joe is quite the same. But when I was talking to people, like, tell me more about what you think Joe will be like as a head coach. The stuff they were describing, it kind of just sounded pretty similar to how EMA was. Got you.

And, you know, because I do, I think it matters what the players do. not so much what they say. I don't think, because like, what I try to impress upon people is that public figures are trained to lie to us on a day-to-day basis. It's literally what they do. They lie to the public.

So to be honest, it's hard for me to put too much stock in the things that a person on the Celtics is going to say to media or to the public via the media, right? So, you know, I'm not going to read into what Jason Tatum or Jalen Brown might have said at Media Day about the coaching situation. But, you know, I'm interested because you're around a team enough. What have you noticed about the approach of the, you know, the Jays, man?

But how are they handling this situation? Because I think Tatum is obviously the best player, even as somebody like me. who used to like to rib Celtics fans about how good or not good Tatum might be. I get it. He's the second coming of Jesus Christ. But, you know, I think... Thank you for acknowledging that. His stature sort of matches what everybody's always envisioned for him right now.

And I wonder if he's taking the reins in the leadership role in that way, right? Because he's still a young guy. But at the same time, you've been there forever now in NBA years. years, what's him and Jalen's approach been to sort of owning what's happening with the team? I mean, I don't think, I think they already had to do all that stuff last year. So, okay. It's just kind of like, it's just a rerun at this point. They already had to go through the whole, you know, falling apart, breaking everything down,

started from scratch, building it up with a new coach last year. So everyone's just been kind of talking about this as we already know the blueprint. We just got to do it again. And we should just be just like literally running it back doing the same thing we did last year. And Missoula, it's not like Missoula is someone they brought in from the outside. And he's going to come in. He's going to change everything. Like, Missoula was already part of the program last year.

He already knows how everything works. He helped design it himself. You know, he wasn't, he wasn't like Will Hardy, who, you know, was the top assistant and probably is the most integral or intimately involved and all that stuff. But Missoula was, you know, he was involved enough that, like, he was a huge part of designing how the team operated last year. And so it's not like he has to learn anything new. It's not like he has, he has to, like, figure out new ideas and new tweaks. He already can do everything that EMA was doing last year as far as, like, just like understanding everything and making whatever tweaks he wants to do. So there isn't really a learning curve there.

And it's not really a getting to know each other curve there. It's more just like, what does he do a little differently and the way he communicates and the assignments he gives people and how he, manages the game and all those kind of things. And so, you know, we've got one regular season game so far. And that game on Tuesday, right, against Philly, he operated pretty similarly to the way that Udoca did. Like, the timing of his adjustments was pretty similar. He brought in Noah Vonle early in the game instead of Grant Williams, which is like another kind of thing that I wouldn't have been surprised to see Emio Odo could do where he wanted to keep Grant Williams in his spot in the rotation as opposed to, you know, mixing it up, which ended up

working in the end. It took them a while, but they ended up figuring it out. And so so far, there hasn't been much for the Jays to do besides, I guess, tell everybody, hey, let's not go completely nuclear on the season and go south. But as long as they keep doing their jobs and keep showing up and, you know, maintaining the same discipline that they had before, everybody else is going to fall in line. The NBA season is underway and it's the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Because right now, new customers get a no-square. first bet up to $1,000.

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Tennessee Redline, 1,800-889, 9789 in Tennessee, 1,800-5-22-4-7-2-4-7-2-4-7. in Wyoming or visit 1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. I want to talk about the team in terms of how they go about accomplishing what their goals are this year. Like, you go to the finals, your goal obviously is to win the finals the next year. It's championship or busts. You know, I think that shit gets overset sometimes.

But, like, it is, right? Like, this is a team built to win now. all of that stuff. Talk to me about the deficiencies this team thinks they need to address and how you think they're going to go about doing that this year. Because to my mind, last year at certain points in a half court, it just got too gummy. It just got to station to station one-on-one,

not a lot of movement, not a lot of stuff going to the basketball. it was, it was like, Tatum completely forcing it. I thought their half-court offense was against the best guys could be pretty freaking ugly at times. And so, like, what to you are they going to try to do better this year to get them over that hump? I mean, Malcolm Brogden is the perfect guy for them to bring in to address all that stuff. Like, if you lay out every single issue they have with their offense and you're talking

about who's the person that could come in or what type of player would come and fix that stuff, it's pretty much bragged into a T. They needed somebody who was a good combo guard that could be a point guard in one situation, it could be an off ball score in the next, and that's exactly what he's been doing so far. And he had a really good game after that first quarter

was kind of rough for him, and then the last three quarters he was really good against Philly. So they've gotten the guy they needed. One guy isn't going to fix all of that for sure. Like Tatum and Brown need to become better decision makers and a little bit more consistent and more reliable shooters and stuff like that. And it's

like there's that much better they can get. Like, they're already both stars. So they're already great players. It's just like the difference between being a, you know, like a fringe all-MBA guy and an MVP level player. And Tatum got there for the most part last year. But then in the playoffs, you know, kind of took a step back when you watch him next to like a guy like Jimmy Butler, who's someone who's used to go to the opposite. He's like really good in the regular season.

And like absolutely one the best players in the world of playoffs. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So like those guys got to get to that level. And they're not, they're pretty close. Like credit to Jalen. I think Jalen actually elevates his. game more in the postseason compared to the regular season.

So, you know, they, they just need more offensive consistency, which means that they need just another person to set guys up, someone who is just honestly just like straight up as like a more fluid ball handler. And Brogden is a good fit for that. You know, Brogden isn't like the ultimate solution. But for someone you could only have to give up a first round pick and then a bunch of players that you weren't going to keep after the season anyway, like that was, that was a great trade.

So Brogden brings that. I think the other big thing, though, is just interior president. with Rob Williams out. They're not a good rebounding team right now. That's like, that's going to be a big problem. It was really bad in the preseason. Wasn't that good on opening night. You know, opening night, like, they kind of took over in the second half.

So if the game stayed tighter, that could have really revealed itself. But they do have rebounding issues on both sides of the ball. And their big man rotation, the deeper you go, like the worst it gets for rebounding, right? It's like, Blake Griffin is, he actually got a bunch of nice rebounds, but they were just rebounds that like weirdly shot off the rim right to him. So maybe a lot of that is boxing out and credit to him. But I think his rebounding numbers look better than it did in reality. So Griffin is going to be a while until he kind of finds his rhythm.

And then maybe Noah Vonle actually turns out to be a decent rotation player because it's been looking good for him so far. And then Luke Cornett is the other guy that's probably going to be in their rotation. And he's barely been able to get in there so far in his career. So after Al Horford and Grant Williams, who are both like average rebounders maybe, they don't have anybody else that you really feel good about the rebounding ability. So that really comes down to like Tatum and Brown crashing, making sure they get three guys on the defensive class, stuff like that. And that is something they haven't been that good with yet.

So they're a team that is going to be able to create momentum. And then they're risking kind of losing it all because they start giving up rebounds. One thing I did like about what I saw against the Sixers was their willingness to just run to be more athletic than their opponent. It's like we're a team of all of these great. wing players, this wing depth. When we do finally squeeze a rebound, we're going to go out and attack you in the half court, which I was really heartened to see.

But I think related to that and getting out in transition is Robert Williams. And part of me feels like if he's right, it doesn't matter what they do in the half court. There'll be so fucking devastating on defense that they're just going to kill people. but, you know, that's such a huge if, and I'm not going to lie to you, I'm pretty, like, his injury diagnosis bumpy out a lot because, you know, he's somebody who I absolutely love watching him play. And I feel like you were one of the people that was super in tune with how they were actually handling the Robert Williams injury last year.

So what's your best sense about what they're going to do this year? Because I don't know, man, it's hard to believe. this guy's going to be healthy this year for any meaningful stretch of the season. Tell me why I'm wrong about that. I mean, I can't tell you why you're wrong. I don't think you're wrong. He, they got to just let him rest forever. Like, he needs to come into Brad's even to office and be like, all right, you've been making

me wait. I'm ready. Let me go. And Brad says, shut up. Go sit down for another two weeks. Because, like, they got to, they got to handle him with kid gloves so badly. And it's funny. I remember him talking about how when he came back, they told him you can't injure it worse.

And I hate when teams say that. Can we retire that fucking line of thinking or like excuse making? Like, that's not a thing. Of course you can make shit worse. Here's why. I think generally when they're saying that, it's kind of the logic of like you already tore this thing. It's already torn.

You can't tear it more. Yeah. There's other parts of the body besides that specific. Right, the knee bones connected to the hip bone, the hip bones connected to the whatever, like, duh. Dibone, I think? Yeah. And who knows how his thigh bones are right now? But it's a thigh bone a real thing. And so they need to make sure that whole skeletal muscular structure is looking phenomenal and is absolutely tip top and he's not compensating on anything because like the dude already has a weird gate. Like he already is one of those kind of shuffling guys. He already doesn't

really kind of bend his knees when he's moving. It's weird. He's like a straight leg slider kind of guy. Like there's people like Grant Williams, good example of a low center of gravity. He's down in the stance and he's bent all the time. And when people move, his reaction speed is super quick because he's kind of down there and he's loaded up.

Rob, he kind of like bends over at the hips and sticks his knees straight up and he's super languid. And when it's time to react, he kind of just like throws his body over there instead of like actually shuffling like a bass runner. Like when you're a kid, you're taught if you're,

if you're on like first base and you want to you want to take off you don't you don't stand on like a staggered stance with your body facing the the base you stand in like an open stance with your feet split and you push off of that back foot and step forward with that first foot because you're moving you're actually your reaction speed is a little bit quicker when you do it that way and that's how like a guy like grant operates versus a guy like rob who's the opposite and so rob when he does that it's like every time he throws his body in one direction you're like none of this looks coordinated and When you're not super coordinated and you're not getting down your stance and having a low center gravity, you're more liable to get hurt. And I have no way to get this scientifically accurate. This is purely based on my BS observations and watching the game for a long time. The classic, I am not a doctor. Oh, I am not a doctor. But I've talked to people about this kind of stuff a little bit. And so it definitely just, it feels like Rob is someone who moves in a way that puts him more at risk for getting hurt.

And so if you're going to bring him back, you need to just at least make sure that. that he's not compensating on top of that stuff. Because, and hopefully he's learning other ways to try to move safely so that he avoids getting hurt. And also part of it is that he's like a super aggressive player and he throws his body all over the place. And so he also just like he's crashing and stuff like that and he's risking as well. So obviously Rob's going to play that way. Maybe he'll play a little bit safer from now on. But like he's going to play that way.

He's already a high flyer. He's landing from 40 feet in the air on that knee. So it's like they got to make sure everything is hunky dory before they put him out there. And I think they probably will, but this is where the Joe Missoula thing comes in is like, if they're struggling, obviously Rob is a huge solution for them if they're struggling, especially in the areas we're talking about. So how does Joe Missoula weather the storm if they're continuing to struggle and Rob is still too far away? Because like this franchise, obviously they cannot rush Rob back under any circumstances, presumably. Because like if this dude gets hurt again, you get to start worrying about his career. Yeah, that's something I'll definitely be.

monitoring all season because, you know, the cool thing about watching opening night is I think these guys are going to play with a lot of pride. I'll cop to being somebody who thought they would be diminished by not having Udoka there by just not just not having him and what the skills that he brings to the table as a coach, but just the disruption and what that means. I thought I thought that it would affect them greatly. And watching them are open to night, These guys take pride in what they do. And they're like, you know what? The guy was a good coach, but we're great fucking players.

We're a great team. And we're going to go out and improve that to people. And it's pretty heartening to see. It's like dope. It's like one of those things just like, oh, they were just like being professional. But like, hey, man, that's not always a given in the NBA as we see year after year. So I think that's pretty cool. I want to ask you one last thing before I get out of here.

what do you think about my Joe Mazzula as Coach of the Year prediction? Oh, really? That's interesting. I mean, if they're like one of the top seeds, he's got to get it, right? Because the situation's insane. You know, because Coach of the Year is basically, we thought you were going to be trash and you weren't. That's essentially who wins the award every single year. It's like coach who nobody expected a single thing of because we had a low opinion of you and your team. Here, here's Coach of the Year.

I can see the narrative going for him. I think it's a big question of if Minnesota is elite, Chris Finch, obviously, is a great candidate there. Same thing with Cleveland of J.B. Bickerstaff. But then you look at everybody else out there of trying to think of a team that you can see happening with. He's not going to get it. I don't know what Eric Spolster would have to do to win coach of the year,

but he's been the best coach in the NBA for 10 years and still hasn't gotten it. And like they were the ones seat last year, right? He still didn't. So like what else could he do at this point? And so, yeah, I feel like Cleveland and Minnesota, those are the two teams that could take a big leap so you can see them getting it. I think I picked Ty Lou.

And after watching the Clippers game last night, I'm going to hack into the athletic system and change my pick from Tai Liu to, I don't know, like Darwin Ham at this point, who the hell knows? But Missoula, if you're looking at the people that have a strong narrative case, if the Celtics continue to be a great team, Joe Missoula obviously is probably the best candidate,

honestly, just because of that narrative. Well, Jared, man, I really appreciate you taking the timeout to talk to us. I'm definitely going to be catching up with you at some point later this season because I think the Celtics thing is one of the most interesting stories in the league, not just on the court, but just as a study of like how guys can come together in the face of some crazy shit and still get amazing special things done. So again, thank you for the town.

Tell the people they can find you in your incredible work because, as I said, you're the best beat writer in the whole town of Boston. Sorry, Jay King. Appreciate the Jay King Slater. Jay's pretty great, too. You can find me, you can find Jay and I at The Athletic, and I host the Daily Ding on the Athletic NBA show on Wednesday and Friday mornings

and could be all over the place over on the athletic pods. Not the same without Wazzo, though. It ain't the same, but it's still pretty damn good. Very sweet of you to say, man. Love you, bro. Miss you much. Again, thanks for coming on.